Fourth former youth center detention worker goes on trial in New Hampshire
CONCORD, N.H. — The first of several sexual abuse trials against a man begins on Wednesday whose arrest more than five years ago to bring allegations of widespread abuse at the New Hampshire State Detention Center for Juveniles to the public’s attention.
Former youth counselor Stephen Murphy, 55, of Danvers, Massachusetts, faces 16 charges involving four boys held at the Youth Development Center in Manchester in the late 1990s. In the current case, he faces one count of aggravated criminal sexual assault, alleging he raped a boy in a stairwell while several co-workers restrained the teen.
Murphy’s accuser, Michael Gilpatrick, has already testified about the allegations twice – first in a civil lawsuit involving another former youth center resident and again a criminal trial for Brad Asbury, the man he said held him down. He described Murphy, Asbury and the others as a “hit squad” who regularly terrorized children.
“The four of them used to roll,” he had testified. “They literally came over and just went door to door and beat all of us, across the board.”
Asbury, 70, was convicted in November of two counts of aiding and abetting aggravated assault, and prosecutors named him as a potential witness against Murphy, who has pleaded not guilty.
Murphy and another former employee were arrested in July 2019 and accused of sexually assaulting David Meehan, who later became the first more than 1,100 former residents who have sued the state for physical, sexual or emotional abuse over six decades.
Murphy’s attorney, Charles Keefe, did not return a call Tuesday, but a former attorney said he has denied the allegations involving Meehan and “anything resembling it involving anyone, regardless of who the accuser is or when it occurred .”
Coinciding with Murphy’s arrest, the attorney general’s office launched a broad investigation into the facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center. A total of eleven men were arrested, although charges were dropped against one due to lack of evidence, another was found incompetent to stand trial, and a third died while awaiting trial. Murphy is the fourth to appear in court.
In addition to Asbury, Stanley Watson was convicted this week of three counts of aggravated sexual assault against two boys. Another case ended in a hung jury is expected to be tried again later this year.
Before his arrest, Murphy worked as a clubhouse attendant for the Boston Red Sox, which suspended him when it learned of the allegations. He took that job in 2007 after working as a special education teacher and assistant high school basketball coach in Massachusetts, according to a 2010 interview with the Lowell Sun.
The Associated Press does not generally identify those who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as Meehan and Gilpatrick have done. Meehan’s lawsuit is the only civil case to have gone to trial to date. A jury awarded him $38 million in Mayalthough that verdict remains in dispute as the state seeks to reduce the amount to $475,000.
The youth center, which once housed more than 100 children but now typically serves fewer than a dozen, is named after former Gov. John H. Sununu. Lawmakers have approved closing the facility, which now houses only those accused or convicted of the most serious violent crimes, and replacing it with a much smaller building in a new location.